Why Trump's Lawyer Said 'They Have Picked The Wrong Guy' After NY Civil Fraud Verdict

Judge Arthur Engoron rendered the decision in the civil fraud lawsuit against former president Donald Trump at the beginning of this year. A crippling $364 million fine was imposed on the GOP front-runner and his family business for inflating business prices. Additionally, Trump has been put on a three-year restriction from holding a state-owned business's director position. Trump's lawyer Alina Habba, recently gave an interview to Fox News' Martha MacCallum's segment. During the segment, MacCallum posed an awkward question: whether or not the former president would have to sell 'almost all, if not all' of his New York holdings to raise the money needed to pay the bond for his fraud appeal. To this, Habba retaliated, "Unfortunately, they picked the wrong guy to pick on in my opinion, because he’s strong, he’s resilient, and he happens to have a lot of cash."

As per Mediaite, Habba continued, "No, I mean, I would never get into anything privileged, but I can tell you what the rules are. And within 30 days, even if we choose to appeal this, which we will, we have to post the bond, which is the full amount and some, and we will be prepared to do that." She continued to explain the breakdown of the sum amount Trump will be paying.

"Well, so, it’s you have to break it up. So there were obviously individual defendants that got fined. There was the company that got fined. But you’re looking at roughly, let’s call it close to $400 million for something that he did nothing wrong. Look, it’s no coincidence. And I’ll say it, they know by looking at his statements of financial condition that this guy is worth a lot of money, billions and billions of billions of dollars. And that didn’t even include his brand, Martha." 

"But what they’re trying to do between this case, between my last case is put him out of business. It’s not going to work. Number one. Number two, what they’re doing is a scare tactic," Habba added. "Now that doesn’t mean that it’s right. It doesn’t mean it’s okay. It’s grotesquely insane. I was speaking to somebody today that actually mentioned that there are countries that literally make that in a given year in certain industries, countries in this world, but they would find somebody for what they call understating their statement of financial condition and making Deutsche Bank in Zurich, who, by the way, they still work with money."

The lawyer continued, "But they’re going to fine him, that kind of thing. It’s absolutely insane." Habba concluded the segment by saying, "No, there will be no mayhem for the Trump Organization. Unfortunately. I know that probably was Miss James’s goal and Judge Engoron, but that is not going to be the case."

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on Feb. 21, 2024. It has since been updated.